I’ve written before about the advantages and disadvantages of reverse mortgages, especially Home Equity Conversion Mortgages (HECM) that are insured and regulated by the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) (see https://www.cognizantwealth.com/2014/02/20/reverse-mortgages-the-good-and-the-bad/).  One of the advantages – the fact that you do not have to undergo an income and credit check in order to qualify for the…
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If you lose your job due to a layoff, the first thing you generally do is to start cutting expenses while searching for the next one.  But if you’re in your late 50s or early 60s, your prospects may be considerably more limited.  Although it’s illegal for employers to discriminate because of age, the fact…
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Earlier this year I wrote about a Bankrate.com article recommending South Dakota as the best place to retire (https://www.cognizantwealth.com/2014/05/15/should-you-retire-to-south-dakota/).   I remarked that since we are all different, it would be more helpful to create a database of factors and leave it to us to decide for ourselves.  The people at Reuters must have read my…
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If your company pension plan (assuming you work for a company that still has one) supports a lump-sum distribution when you retire, you will be faced with the decision whether to roll over the pension into an IRA or whether to take it as an annuity (i.e. as guaranteed income for life). What many people…
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